Cochran to House Judiciary: Cameras in the Courtroom Work

The proposed Sunshine in the Courtroom Act of 2007 represents an important step toward removing the cloak of secrecy surrounding our judicial system, Barbara Cochran told the House Judiciary Committee on September 27.

The RTNDA president testified in favor of legislation that would create a three-year pilot program during which U.S. appellate or district court judges could permit television and radio coverage of federal court proceedings.

All 50 states now permit some manner of audiovisual coverage in courtrooms; 43 states allow electronic coverage at the trial level.

But the federal government has not yet established such guidelines.

“RTNDA’s members have covered court proceedings in every state, and their experiences demonstrate that cameras do not interfere with the administration of justice or infringe the rights of defendants or witnesses,” she said. “Cameras in the courtroom work. They create a public record. They get the story right.”

Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA), a co-sponsor of the bill along with Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH), chaired the hearing. Most of the members of Congress who attended the hearing spoke in support of the bill. Rep. Lamar Smith, (R-TX), the ranking member, asked questions that indicated he opposes the legislation.

Cochran was invited to testify along with six other witnesses. Speaking in favor of the legislation were: Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), a former assistant district attorney and felony court judge; U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner; Susan Swain, president and chief operating officer of C-SPAN; and Fred Graham, anchor and managing editor at Court TV. U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, speaking on behalf of the U.S. Judicial Conference, and U.S. Attorney John Richter, speaking on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice, opposed the bill.

Supporters said that experience at the state level showed that cameras in the courtroom do not interfere with the judicial process.

Tunheim and Richter argued that cameras would intimidate witnesses already reluctant to testify, or make prosecutors and judges behave differently than they would otherwise, creating situations that can adversely affect the trial outcomes. Both mentioned safety and privacy concerns for all courtroom participants, including the judges.

“The paramount question is not whether more openness is needed,” Tunheim said. “The better question is: Will the presence of a camera deprive citizens of their right to have a fair trial?”

Richter agreed. “Our duty is to see justice is done,” he said. “I look at whether it will add to or detract from the process, and this will only detract from the process.”

Following the hearing, Cochran said she was surprised at the limited scope of the opposing arguments that focused on fear of a negative impact on witnesses. “That argument is very easy to answer with the 26 years of experience at the state level, where that has not been the case,” she said. “Also, witnesses only are a factor at the trial level. The arguments do not apply to appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Cochran agreed with Judge Gertner, who said audiovisual coverage of federal proceedings seems a natural extension of new technology that has come to the court system. “If you think about how much technology has changed in the past 10 years since this bill was first introduced,” Cochran said, “and how ubiquitous information has become and the many ways you have to get it, it just seems archaic to not have electronic coverage in federal courts.”

--Stefani Blair for RTNDA

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